Japanese Accountant Fee

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

I posted a few weeks ago about my Japanese accountant charging 200,000 yen for a blue tax return as a sole proprietor with spouse (me) as an employee. However, before doing the tax return I confirmed exactly what the price would be and have been told 400,000 yen!

I went to meet another accountant face to face today to get a quote for the next tax year and was quoted 350,000 yen...

I'm struggling to understand why the accountant fees are so high. I asked my accountant what he is doing and he said the following points.

1. Withholding tax procedures for me
2. My year-end adjustments (tax return)
3. Any legal reports prepared and submitted
4. Prepare and submit my payroll report
5. Compile the figures from January to December and prepare the ledger.
6. Prepare financial statements based on the books
7. Prepare tax returns based on books and financial statements.
8. Submit blue tax return to the tax office.

Does anyone run a similar business (sole proprietor with spouse as an employee) who can recommend a more affordable accountant? 400,000 yen is an ridiculous amount of money to pay.

I'm pretty sure my wife pays less than that for her accountant, and she runs a medium-sized business as a sole proprietor with over a dozen full and part-time staff (accountant does all their annual tax withholding, etc.).

But he's a local guy who is retiring next year, so not much help to you. They are definitely out there though.

I think number 5 there might be your most expensive and time consuming for the accountant. For preparing the ledger I pay 240,000 yen, 20,000 yen every time we have our monthly meeting. I then pay an additional 70,000 for the preparation of the tax return. It does depend on the size of your business.

[captainspoke]

My wife has been getting her own biz going, teaching/tutoring but she's been doing the business side on her own. Maybe two years ago now she had been studying for and then passed level 2 of the bookkeeping exam, and IIRC it covered double-entry to the degree needed for a personal business (level 1 is for full-on biz accounting).

She has taken some classes (zoom) with an accountant and also looked at youtubes on it. She uses Yayoi, and has been entering everything herself (I don't know all the details), but had a printout of her tax filing a couple days ago (I'd just finished my tax office visit so we were talking about it all). She thinks it's done, but has her own appt at the tax office this coming week, a few questions and they can offer whatever they may. After re-doing any fixes/changes that come up, I think she'll file it and be done. No accountant involved.

She's been able to use her mother's place as a biz location (mother went into 施設 ~18months ago), which is otherwise empty, which she has said simplified some expenses--not necessary to separate things like utility costs for part of home being used, etc.

[Petronius]

I can't contribute much as I don't use an accountant. I work as a sole proprietorship and fill in the blue form. I do all the data entry myself on Yayoi and do my tax filling by myself.
I have a finance/accounting background so I am not starting from scratch but several of my Japanese friends without relevant backgrounds are doing the same. Yayoi has a hotline that answers specific questions too.

Given the high costs of an accountant it might be worth giving it some thoughts.

[Jura]

Thanks everyone for your replies and sharing your experiences.

I managed to find a local accountant who is within my budget. Communication will be in Japanese but I think my Japanese level is enough to manage that.

I'm going to look into doing the filing myself in the future. I do have some experience with book-keeping and accounts from my time working a corporate job and also running my own business in the UK so I'm not starting from scratch, it's mostly the language that is the intimidating part! The book keeping exam would be a nice challenge.